Sunday, September 28, 2014

Before you read the post by Susan Duclos please read my thoughts on the matter. Then please read the poem I wrote several months ago, at the end of the Susan's post and video:

I agree that
technology and those who rule technology will one day rule the world. There is
however a flaw in technology’s veneer – technology is still fueled by a man-made
power source. It is neither ubiquitous, nor everlasting.

I am one
who still believes in the soul. It is a self-contained power source attached to
a ubiquitous and eternal Source. That Source can obliterate technology at any
time. Furthermore, technology cannot be programmed with free will. Attempting
to program Free Will into a trans-humanist creation, would only create a syntax
error.

The
evolution from humanism to trans-humanism means that the soul would be placed
in a state of suspended animation, (i.e. as the soul is indestructible energy) to
be awakened when technology can no longer adapt to, or mutate, with Nature.
Nature is the key to trans-humanism – Nature is God’s power source.

"The End of Mankind" - Hagmann And Hagmann, Zilinsky With Tim Alberino

By Susan Duclos

In the weekend edition
of the Hagmann and Hagmann report, hosted by Sheila Zilinsky because
Doug Hagmann has become seriously ill, as explained in a previous ANP article,
the show is joined by both Dr. Timothy Ball in the first hour and Tim
Alberino in the second hour. In the first hour, Zilinsky and Dr. Ball
discuss the climate change chaos as well as the near future water
weaponization plans.

In the second hour, which this article
covers, Tim Alberino discusses what Zilinsky refers to as "the end of
mankind" as we know it, where the Transhumanism agenda is moving forward
with the complete erosion of what we consider "human" in the term
human beings. Post humanism, or as Alberino dubs it, the "New Human
Paradigm," where on every single level, including technology, religion,
philosophy, occult, the so-called "alien agenda," and more, are all moving us towards one "center," resulting in a frightening reality.

Alberino
explains why this topic is so critical about this new technology but
more importantly, he explains the ramifications of what is
happening right now with the transhumanism agenda.... how we are being
programmed, how it is being hyped in the media, movies and in the
scientific community.

For those that think this is all some type
of conspiracy theory, or something to worry about in the distant future,
simply sci-fi.... an explanation of the transhumanism agenda, can be
found in an article published just today at the Institute Of Ethics And Emerging Technologies,
where the agenda, the thinking of those that welcome and consider the
idea "exciting," rather than an affront to our very nature and humanity,
is explained clearly in the two quoted paragraphs below:

Central
to our thinking, and implicit in the title “evolution and technology,”
is the idea – increasingly familiar and plausible – that the human
species stands at the threshold of a new form of evolution. This is very
different from the slow Darwinian mechanisms of differential survival
and reproduction. It is powered, rather, by new technologies that
increasingly work their way inward, transforming human bodies and minds.
According to this idea, technology can do more than merely give us
tools to manipulate the world around us. It can actually alter us, and
not just by shaping our neurological pathways when we learn tohandle new tools. Our future may, in part, be the product of emerging technologies of human transformation, ranging from genetic engineering to pharmaceutical cognitive enhancement to such radical possibilities as mind uploading and all that it might imply.

This idea of a technologically mediated process of evolution is, of
course, familiar to transhumanists, who envisage (and generally welcome)
the emergence of intelligences with greater-than-human physical and
cognitive capacities. Even outside the transhumanist movement, however,
there’s an increasing familiarity with the general idea of a new kind of evolution, no longer the product of Darwinian mechanisms but driven by technology and deliberate choices.

The sci-tech news goes on and on for those that bother to look, but many aren't all that interested in what is happening in the scientific world, but it is news that everyone should be watching, specifically those that claim all this talk of transhumanism is just conspiracy babble.

It isn't.

Alberino
is introduced to the show at approximately the 1 hour, 26 minute mark
in the video/audio below. This is a show everyone should listen to and
understand because Sheila is completely accurate in her statement that
this technology which is being worked on right now, is literally the end of mankind as we know it.

Saturday, September 27, 2014

"The Big One Is Coming" - V The Guerrilla Economist Exclusive

By Live Free or Die and Susan Duclos

For all of our readers and listeners who have been waiting for an update from 'V the Guerrilla Economist', Live Free or Die and myself had the opportunity Friday night to interviewthe man who has been WAY ahead of the game
for a long time now, his warnings and predictions eerily accurate, and
what he shared with us is the kind of information that we have all been
waiting for.

"V" begins by updating us on recent information
that he has received from his 4-Star General source and warns that
events are still on schedule, a schedule that he previously warned would
leave the US dollar 'undermined' by 2015 and the US ceasing to exist as a nation by 2017. While millions of Americans believe that 'those running the show'
are bumbling and stumbling idiots, "V" refutes that argument by telling
us that for them, things are going exactly according to plans.

The process of undermining the US dollar
is well on schedule as well; more than 105 countries have decided that
the dollar no longer works for them, joining Russia, China and other
BRICS nations in leaving the dollar as the entire world comes to the
realization that America's leaders are insane. Their recklessness and
evil ways have left tremendous shame upon our nation.

Though
there has been much manipulation and propping up, but that is only
setting us up for the inevitable 'massive crash'. They're getting
ready to 'bring in the chaos' we are warned, as well as informing us
"the big one is coming," and before they are done, a 'Mad Max'/'Road
Warrior' scenario isn't totally out of the picture.
Between bio-weapons unleashed upon America after the collapse that may
leave 25 million Americans dead within days, "V" moves on to the signs
that we should be looking for as the end comes closer.

In the portion where "V" describes his interactions with the General,
we get a very clear, disturbing glimpse into how the US Government
plans to deal with the "chaos" that is coming and it will chill you to
the bone as he describes what was asked of, and offered to the General, and the General's visceral reaction.

TSRI scientists awarded DARPA grant to build artificial immune system

Scientists from both campuses of The Scripps Research Institute
(TSRI) have been awarded a total of $7.9 million from the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the U.S.

Department of
Defense. The two teams will build what is, in essence, an artificial
immune system, comprising vast "libraries" of different types of
molecules from which will emerge individual compounds to detect or
neutralize an array of biological and chemical threats.

Under the auspices of DARPA's new Fold F(x) Program, the Jupiter,
Florida team, led by Professor Tom Kodadek and Assistant Professor Brian
Paegel, will receive $5.7 million; the La Jolla, California team, led
by Professor Floyd Romesberg, will receive $2.2 million.

Developing New Libraries

In Jupiter, Kodadek, Paegel and their colleagues will develop
libraries of functional compounds and engineer highly automated
strategies for rapid synthesis, screening and production. These
libraries will contain molecules each tagged with a DNA
"barcode" that uniquely identifies the molecules' chemical structure.
"We hope to create chemical libraries and screening platforms that are
truly revolutionary in their capabilities," Kodadek said.

For Paegel, the DARPA grant will expand his lab's current program in
drug discovery technology development. His team has developed a
microfluidic circuit that screens single compounds suspended on
artificial beads, processing more than 200,000 compounds in a matter of
hours. "We envision next-generation small molecule discovery as a
distributed enterprise, not just limited to facilities like our
molecular screening center in Jupiter," Paegel said. "Our
ultra-miniaturized approach will make this vision a reality."

Related Stories

In La Jolla, Romesberg and his colleagues will develop variants of
oligonucleotides—short, single-stranded DNA or RNA molecules—modified to
be both stable and to have increased functionality.

The team will
leverage a system known as SELEX (Systematic Evolution of Ligands by
Exponential Enrichment) to evolve novel function molecules. "We plan to
modify the classical SELEX methodology with two innovations from our
previous work," Romesberg said.

The first innovation, developed by Tingjian Chen, a postdoctoral fellow in the Romesberg lab, is a DNA polymerase evolved to recognize nucleotides with modified sugars, which impart the corresponding oligonucleotide polymers with increased thermal stability and resistance to enzymes that typically degrade oligonucleotides.

The second innovation is an unnatural base pair, developed as part of
the team's recent expansion of the genetic alphabet, which can be
modified with linkers to site-specifically attach different
functionality to oligonucleotides. The combined technologies should
allow for the evolution of novel biopolymers that are both stable and
possess virtually any desired binding or catalytic activity.

Muslims Claim This Country Will Be The First “Muslim Nation” In Europe

Daily headlines prove that Europe is bursting at the seams with
Islamists attempting to establish Sharia law and homegrown terror plots.
France is ablaze with radicals, ISIS threatens they will send Spain
back to the times of the Ottoman Empire, and Britain is much too
concerned with appeasing Muslims that they are doing away with their own
citizens’ free speech.

The world is idly watching to see which European country will fall to Islamic rule, creating the first Muslim nation.

According to TMI, Muslims have already established which country will be the first to cave to Sharia:

A website claiming to be the Danish Muslim Party (DAMP) published a
“press release” in English and Danish, saying that Denmark will be the
first Muslim nation in Europe.

“[W]e can assure you that everything will be better in Muslim
Denmark: No drugs, no crime, peace, and humanity – instead of drug
culture, immorality, possibly human rights crimes and violence which we
have now.”

(NaturalNews) In furtherance of the medical monopoly that dominates
western civilization today, the FDA issued warning letters to three
companies over what they call fraudulent health claims regarding Ebola
treatments.

The warning letters, viewable here,
single out the Natural Solutions Foundation (Rima Laibow) and two
essential oil companies "Young Living" and "doTerra" whose distributors,
the FDA says, were making claims that their oils could treat or prevent
Ebola.

The warning letters threaten all three companies with
possible criminal prosecutions if they do not immediately answer the FDA
and FTC with explanations of how they plan to halt the making of such
claims. As of this writing, the e-commerce website of the Natural Solutions Foundation appears to have already removed any mention of Ebola.

"An
FDA agent showed up at my front door on September 23, 2014, to hand
deliver [highly unusual!] a Warning Letter from that agency and the
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) advising Natural Solutions that telling
the truth about Ebola, Nano Silver and CBD is, according to those
agencies, against their version of the law," wrote Ralph Fucetola in this rebuttal letter entitled "We will not be suppressed!"

Fucetola goes on to write:

FDA
and FTC are simply wrong about the law. And during the Ebola Epidemic
their actions actively violate the July, 2014 World Health Organization
(WHO) pronouncement that, during this crisis, offering even "unproven
interventions" is ethical. What is not ethical is the position taken by
the FDA and FTC.

Beyond the warning letters, here's the rest of the story the national press isn't reporting

While
I agree that no claims of treatment or cures should ever be made
against any disease until they are supported by substantial evidence,
there are some shocking facts about all this that both the FDA and FTC
are conveniently ignoring:

Fact #1) The FDA refuses to
conduct any testing on natural or alternative therapies (such as
colloidal silver) in order to find out whether they work or not. What if
some of these alternative medicines actually do work, but the medical
monopoly doesn't want us to find out?

Fact #2) The FDA
openly rubber-stamped the treatment of Ebola patients with the entirely
unproven, experimental drug "ZMapp," which has so far resulted in around
a 40% fatality rate in Ebola patients. How exactly is it that an
unproven pharmaceutical is okay to use as a treatment for Ebola,
but an unproven herb or natural remedy is completely unacceptable and
possibly illegal? (The double standard of so-called "science" is
breathtaking...)

Fact #3) The FDA openly allows billions of dollars of pharmaceuticals to be prescribed each year for health conditions they were never approved for! This is called "off-label prescribing" and it's a huge part of the pharmaceutical industry's profit model.

The
way it works is that a drug company receives a limited FDA approval for
the drug to treat a specific, limited health condition, then that drug
company engages in widespread bribery and kickbacks to doctors
to encourage them to prescribe the drug for all sorts of other
conditions that have never been backed by clinical trials or scientific
evidence of any kind. All the while, the company claims the drug is "FDA
approved," but not for the health conditions for which it is commonly prescribed!

In
truth, many of the drugs U.S. consumers are prescribed for certain
health conditions aren't backed by any evidence at all. The illusion of
so-called "evidence-based medicine" across the pharmaceutical industry
is truly an elaborate myth. The FDA doesn't even conduct any testing of
pharmaceuticals at all and instead relies on drug companies to submit
their own tests... which are often fabricated or falsified.

The existence of this patent means that no company can even conduct scientific tests with Ebola viruses
without running afoul of U.S. patent laws. Even worse, any company
possessing Ebola would probably find its principals arrested and charged
as terrorists under the U.S. Patriot Act which has specific provisions
regarding "biological terrorism."

This combination of
"anti-terrorism" laws and U.S. patent laws creates an actual monopoly of
research on Ebola treatments. Only the government itself can authorize
such research, and it is of course entirely beholden to pharmaceutical
interests. This is why all research funding for Ebola cures is strictly
limited to vaccines and pharma drugs. No other alternatives are even
tested or considered.

Fact #5) The FDA has never shown
that colloidal silver or natural cures don't work to help prevent Ebola.
Granted, we can't expect the agency to run around testing everything in
sight just to find out what doesn't work, but shouldn't a few of the
more likely natural remedies be studied against Ebola in the interests
of the public good?

Despite all the talk by the FDA (and the
mainstream media) about "bogus cures," the simple scientific truth is
that such status has never been established. No government organization
or medical group has ever tried colloidal silver against Ebola. So how,
exactly, are they so sure it's a "bogus" cure? A more technically
accurate term would be "unproven." And I agree that colloidal silver is
indeed an "unproven" treatment vs. Ebola, as is everything else.

Personally,
I've never seen any convincing documentation that colloidal silver
treats Ebola. But at the same time I've never seen any evidence that
ZMapp treats Ebola, either... yet that drug was irrationally and
enthusiastically heralded as a "miracle" treatment for Ebola even when
it utterly lacked any evidence whatsoever of safety or efficacy.

When it comes to global pandemics, science be damned!
All the institutions that control the conversation -- the FDA, CDC and
national press -- automatically ASSUME that drugs will work and natural
substances won't. This assumption is invoked by default, almost as a
Pavlovian response among drug regulators, without a single shred of
evidence to support it. That's not science; it's dogma (with a special
emphasis on the drooling dog, of course).

Here at Natural News, I've consistently repeated that NOTHING has yet been proven to treat, prevent or cure Ebola.
Thus, all medicines -- natural, conventional or otherwise -- are
"experimental and unproven" by definition. And yet, amazingly, any
experimental and unproven medicines produced by drug companies
automatically enjoy the faith-based default belief that they are safe
and effective while any experimental and unproven medicines synthesized
by Mother Nature are assumed to be dangerous and useless.

It is
my belief that these assumptions are upside-down. Plant-based medicines
have been effectively used for thousands of years to fight plagues in
regions like ancient China, for example. There is already a track record
of plant-based medicine being used throughout human history to halt the
spread of disease. The fact that the FDA refuses to acknowledge the
existence of that historical record does not make it disappear from
human civilization. And while we should never leap to the conclusion
that such plants are useful for modern-day Ebola, shouldn't we at least TEST them and find out for sure?

If
any of us claim to be scientists at all, then shouldn't the scope of
our curiosity for expanded knowledge be large enough to encompass all
the available systems of medicine? Or have our scientific minds now
become so narrow and limited that the search for the cure for the
world's most dangerous Ebola outbreak must be limited solely to
synthetic chemicals that can be patented by powerful corporations who
already have a track record of committing felony fraud? (GSK, the
company testing the Ebola vaccine on humans right now, was caught committing felony bribery crimes in both the United States and China and has paid literally billions of dollars in fines as a "buyout" for those crimes.)

There is a cure for Ebola, and it's programmed into your DNA right now

There is one natural cure for Ebola that has already been proven to work about 50% of the time. It's called the human immune system. Every person who has survived Ebola so far has been saved by it. It is, by definition, a legitimate "cure" for Ebola.

Big Pharma and the FDA won't tell you this for the simple reason that they can't sell you your own immune system. You already got it for free.

Will
the FDA now send warning letters to Ebola survivors, threatening them
with criminal arrest if they don't stop "treating" themselves with their
own immune systems?

The astonishing power of the immune system
to saves lives is exactly why I've openly called for doctors, hospitals
and institutions of medicine to find ways to support that miraculous
immune system. If the immune system already has the potential to save
about 50% of those infected, what might happen if we find simple,
low-cost ways to enhance the human immune system?

Could
immune support protocols boost Ebola survival rates to 60, 70 or even 90
percent? The truth is we'll never know under the current medical
cartel. And we won't know because such research is effectively banned and oppressed
by the scientific dictatorship that runs our western medical system
which is itself steeped in felony crimes, human medical experimentation
and research fraud.

How many people must die while western medicine suppresses research into natural remedies?

If
this Ebola outbreak continues to explode as is now predicted by the
CDC, there's no telling how many hundreds of thousands of lives may be
unnecessarily lost due to the monopolistic, knowledge-suppressing
activities of the medical cartel. In the quest to protect the profits of
the vaccine makers, government regulators seem happy to stand by and
watch countless victims die even when effective natural remedies may
exist right this very minute and be readily available.

In a world
dominated by western imperialist medicine and corporate interests,
there is no limit to the number of human victims who will be sacrificed
to protect profits. And that's the saddest part of this entire story.
The serious fraud isn't coming from people like Rima Laibow who talked
up colloidal silver as an Ebola remedy; the real fraud is coming from
the medical cartel which actively censors any and all scientific
research into natural remedies which could one day save millions of
lives in a true "global killer" pandemic outbreak.

Until we stop
allowing so-called "science" to be unduly influenced by corporate
interests, we'll never know what the best cures for Ebola might be.
Perhaps the best cure is found in some tree-bound fungi growing in the
rainforest. Perhaps it's a chemical compound found in a rare sea sponge.
Or heck, maybe it's a nutrient growing in dandelion roots in your own
back yard. The truth is we'll never know because the system of
imperialist western medicine absolutely refuses to let anyone even ask
the question (or conduct the research). The mere discussion of such
medical alternatives is practically a crime in America today.

Why we must explore the full diversity of human knowledge if we are to save ourselves

I happen to believe that if we are going to solve the Ebola pandemic problem, we need to work together as a world community,
exploring all the available knowledge of every system of medicine known
to humankind. Western medicine may have a valuable role to play, but it
surely isn't the only medicine available today. All across our planet,
other systems of medicine are valuable, safe, effective and readily
available. These include Amazon rainforest medicine, Australian
Aborigine medicine, Tibetan medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine,
Ayurvedic medicine, Western herbal medicine, homeopathic medicine and
many more.

To pretend that one and only one system of medicine
has anything to offer is foolish beyond description. If we hope to
survive this outbreak, we must set aside our monopolistic profit motives
and test ALL kinds of medicines that are available everywhere around the world.
After all, if the science of randomized, double-blind,
placebo-controlled studies is truly scientific, then isn't it scientific
enough to also test the efficacy of herbal medicines? Chinese
medicines? Homeopathic medicines? Why not conduct the science and let
the answers speak for themselves? Why can't our government fund
scientific research into non-patented, everyday remedies that are
affordable for the citizens of developing nations?

Only then can
we know we've exhausted the search for cures, treatments or prevention
medicines. If western medicine comes out on top after that exhaustive
search, then it will have earned that position. But if western medicine
is simply declared superior while all other medicines are maliciously
excluded by a monopolistic medical regime, then we can only assume we're
witnessing the actions of a sham system of dishonest medicine that
profits from the suppression of knowledge rather than its discovery.

Exclusive | Former CIA contractor speaks out on Syria: “It’s suicide…we’re not going to come out of this alive.”

By: Joshua CookSep 24, 2014

Former CIA contractor Steven Kelley tells Benswann.com that ISIS is a
“wide open secret” and confirms that the CIA has been training and
arming ISIS and rebel groups. He and paints a grim picture of what may
happen in Syria and predicts that this new war will spiral out of
control, turning into World War 3.

“We’re not going to come out of this alive,” said Kelley. Listen to the exclusive interview here.

FBI Says No One Killed at "Sandy Hook"

Recently released FBI crime statistics curiously
appear to show that no murders occurred in Newtown, Connecticut, in
2012, despite reports that numerous schoolchildren and faculty members
were slaughtered during a shooting rampage in December of that year.

On December 14, 2012, the world watched in horror as the corporate
media reported the deaths of 20 students and 6 staff members at the
Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown at the hands of a deranged
20-year-old.

Internet sleuths immediately took to the web to stitch together clues
indicating the shooting could be a carefully-scripted false flag event,
similar to the 9/11 terror attacks, the central tenet being that the
event would be used to galvanize future support for gun control
legislation. Two years later, and scores of politicians and gun control
groups have cited the Sandy Hook incident as a pretext to curtail
Americans’ Second Amendment rights.

The investigation took an odd turn earlier this year when national school safety consultant Wolfgang Halbig was visited and threatened at his home by homicide detectives
after he began reporting on additional inconsistencies in the Sandy
Hook narrative, which he believes prove the shooting to be fabricated.

Additionally, Halbig questioned why no trauma helicopters were
ever summoned to the school, and why paramedics and EMTs weren’t allowed
to enter the building to try to save lives.

In contrast to the Connecticut report, the 2012 FBI crime report for the state of Colorado
shows that 29 murders occurred in the town of Aurora that year, a
figure which takes into account the number of people who died in the
Century Theater during the premiere of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark
Knight film.

2012 FBI crime report for the state of Colorado shows 29 murders occurred that year.

While those who question the official Sandy Hook story have largely
been marginalized, the FBI’s own data is now seemingly substantiating
their theories.

Reevely: The $309-million Toronto office tower mistake

An architectural rendering of the MaRS Phase 2 tower the
provincial government is buying rather than losing it to a loan default
because Toronto's MaRS Discovery District can't fill it with tenants.
Rendering from MaRS Discovery District

The problem isn’t so much that you and I are buying this mostly
empty office building in downtown Toronto. The problem is that nobody
will quite explain how we got into a position where we have to.

It’s a nice building in a prime location, on University Avenue just
south of Queen’s Park and on the edge of the hospital district. Twenty
storeys, brand new. Right on top of a subway station. Lovely finishes.

Unfortunately, it was built to be part of the MaRS Discovery
District, a government-supported incubator for life-sciences companies
spun out of the Toronto hospitals and their research centres, and it
hasn’t worked. It’s supposed to be a high-tech laboratory building and
high-tech lab-oriented companies haven’t moved in.

This might have something to do with the fact that one occupant the
building has signed is a laboratory operated by Public Health Ontario, a
Level 3 lab for working with deadly germs (the scale goes up to 4).
There’s also been a glut of such space on the Toronto market lately,
with multiple hospitals opening new research facilities.

It’s a little difficult to disentangle all the entities involved in
the MaRS operation. They’re virtually all half-public, half-private
corporations of one kind or another: hospitals, heavily subsidized
private non-profits, Crown agencies. But what it comes down to is
that the MaRS people haven’t been able to find tenants for the building,
the real-estate company that built the thing needs to be paid, and the
provincial government is holding the bag.

The solution, revealed Tuesday by Economic Development Minister Brad
Duguid and Bert Clark of Infrastructure Ontario, is that the government
is effectively buying the building for MaRS. It has made a conditional
deal with U.S.-based Alexandria Real Estate that will make Alexandria go
away and will give MaRS control of the leases. In theory, the
government will get paid back the money it’s sinking in, but if not, the
bottom-line cost to taxpayers will be $308.8 million.

(If this sounds familiar, it’s because the provincial Tories revealed
the plan in draft form during the provincial election campaign last
spring. It is now coming to pass.)

“This will increase occupancy revenues and produce long-term
stability for this important site,” Duguid said in a conference call
with reporters from across the province. It will allow “greater
flexibility on lease rates, and the terms and types of tenants for the
MaRS building.”

The top-end lab tower won’t have to be occupied by top-end
biotechnology and medical-research companies. Maybe the eventual tenants
won’t pay as much as we were expecting. But at least we’ll get somebody
in there. Possibly ordinary provincial bureaucrats, moved in from other
offices around Toronto.

The details are to be sorted out over the next few months by a
two-person panel of investment guru Michael Nobrega and retired Western
University business-school dean Carol Stephenson, who’ll balance the
need for the building to make some kind of financial sense with
the province’s desire to have it perform a semblance of its intended
function. Supposedly it’s been valued independently at just over $300
million.

In all, this sounds like they’re making the best of a bad
situation. What would be more reassuring is if we knew how we got into
the bad situation so we would know we aren’t going to get into it again.

Who thought it was a good idea to construct this building we can’t
now find tenants for is not a question either Clark or Duguid was
prepared to answer on Tuesday’s call.

All Clark would say is that the project went through a rigorous
vetting process like all of the projects Infrastructure Ontario
supports, as if that doesn’t raise more questions than it answers.

All Duguid would do was attack the question, pretending he was being
asked to justify the idea of economic development as government policy.
As the economic development minister, that’s a challenge he was happy to
take on. MaRS is an economically vital thing, Toronto has a vibrant
research cluster, and the government just won’t walk away from it. “It’s
important work and we believe it needs to continue,” he said.

So if you’re saying the Ontario government should sit on its hands
while other jurisdictions encourage their life-sciences industries, why,
Brad Duguid just doesn’t understand you.

How, precisely, the life sciences are encouraged by spending up to
$309 million on an office tower we can’t rent to the people we meant to
rent it to remains unclear.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

What does human meat taste like?

The tasting notes of serial killers, robots and explorers

Two London chefs are this week trying to come up with a burger that tastes like human flesh, while Hannibal is busy cooking lung and loin bourguignon over on NBC, but exactly what flavour do we

It's a macabre thought, but one carnivores can't help but idly wonder from time to time when eating the wide array of animals that we do.

What with cannibalism being illegal
and all, we only really have the unreliable testimonies of murderers
and long-dead explorers to go on. Here are some notable human-eaters'
tasting notes:

"Man's flesh is delicious, it tastes far better than fish or pork."

-
Alexander Pearce, an Irish convict notorious for cannibalising his
fellow prison escapees. He reportedly made these comments shortly before
being hanged.

"I sauteed the steak of Bernd, with
salt, pepper, garlic and nutmeg. I had it with Princess croquettes,
Brussels sprouts and a green pepper sauce. The flesh tastes like pork, a
little bit more bitter, stronger. It tastes quite good."

- German cannibal Armin Meiwes during a 2007 TV interview.

"It melted in my mouth like raw tuna in a sushi restaurant."

- Murderer Issei Sagawa, on taking a bite out of his victim.

"It
was like good, fully developed veal, not young, but not yet beef. It
was very definitely like that, and it was not like any other meat I had
ever tasted... It was mild, good meat with no other sharply defined or
highly characteristic taste such as for instance, goat, high game, and
pork have."

- William Seabrook, an explorer who ate a human rump steak on a trip to West Africa.

"It's so sweet."

- Egyptian model Omaima Nelson on her husband's ribs.

"I
only eat the parts with muscles, particularly thighs and calves, which
are my favorite. I make a very tasty stew with the tongue and I use the
eyes to make a nutritious and healthy soup."

- Dorangel Vargas, known as the 'Hannibal Lecter of the Andes'.

"The breasts of man...are the sweetest meat I ever tasted."

- American prospector Alferd Packer, who was accused of cannibalism during the winter of 1873-1874.

There we have it. Apparently somewhere between veal and pork steaks. Unless you'd rather take the word of an NEC food-testing robot, which when a reporter placed his hand against its taste sensor deemed him to be "prosciutto".

The Russian Federation has warned the United States of violating the sovereignty of the crisis-hit Syria.

Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called on US Secretary of State John
Kerry to respect Syria's sovereignty, the ministry said in a statement
on Sunday.

Lavrov urged "the necessity to strictly comply with the
United Nations statute, norms of international law and unconditional
respect of Syrian sovereignty," the statement read.

Lavrov's
remarks came after US President Barack Obama authorized airstrikes
against the ISIL Takfiri terrorists in the region earlier this month.

The
ISIL Takfiri terrorists currently control parts of Syria and Iraq. They
have threatened all communities, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds,
Christians, Izadi Kurds and others, as they continue their atrocities in
Iraq.

The terrorist group has links with Saudi intelligence and is believed to be indirectly supported by the Israeli regime.

Syria
has been gripped by deadly violence since 2011 with ISIL Takfiri
terrorists currently controlling parts of it mostly in the east.

The
Western powers and their regional allies -- especially Qatar, Saudi
Arabia and Turkey -- are reportedly supporting the militants operating
inside Syria.

More than 191,000 people have been killed in over
three years of fighting in the war-ravaged country, says the Office of
the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), calling the figure a
probable "underestimate of the real total number of people killed."

China Moves To Dominate Gold Market With Physical Exchange

China is slowly moving to dominate the global gold market and it is
important to join the dots regarding a few key recent developments in
China relating to gold.

When the International Board of the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) was
launched last Thursday September 18 during an evening trading session,
it was notable that the first transactions were put through by a diverse
group comprising HSBC, MKS (Switzerland), and the Chinese banks, ICBC,
Bank of China and Bank of Communications.

MKS is the Geneva headquartered precious metals trading group that also owns the large PAMP refinery company in Switzerland.
There are reportedly 40 international participants signed up to trade
on the SGE International Board (SGEI), but the SGE hasn't specifically
confirmed the identities of all participants.

Like the domestic SGE which counts precious metals refineries as
members, the SGEI will have a diverse group of trading participants
including a number of international refineries as well as bullion banks
and trading houses.

Precious metals refineries Metalor Technologies and Heraeus have
confirmed that they will be participants and along with MKS, this
represents three of the largest gold refineries in the world.
International bullion banks who have already announced their
participation include ANZ, Standard Chartered and HSBC, and its also
known that Standard Bank, JP Morgan and the Bank of Nova Scotia were
said to be interested. The Perth Mint was also said to be interested.

The presence of international refineries and possibly international
mints as possible direct participants within SGEI trading should improve
liquidity and price discovery on the new international exchange and
help it become a serious competitor to the existing duopoly of gold
price discovery carried on in the London OTC market and the New York
gold futures market.

One encouraging factor about the SGE and the SGE international
platform is that there is a lot of physical gold flowing through the
Exchange. Therefore, price discovery is not just based on an inverted
pyramid of mostly unallocated gold as in London or mostly cash-traded
futures paper gold as in New York.
Like everything in China, the SGE thinks big and it currently employs
a network of 58 certified vaults, 55 of which are for storing gold and 3
of which store silver. These 58 vaults are located in 36 Chinese cities
that are considered important for gold refining and gold consumption
and physical delivery can actually occur between the vaults.

With the launch of the SGEI, the International Board has its own new
vault in which international participants can load gold in and out of.
The is vault is being managed by Bank of Communications and is
strategically located in the Zhabei district, not too far from the
Shanghai International Airport. Brinks in Shanghai will be the official
transporters of gold for the SGEI.

Shanghai and Hong Kong Gold Markets To Connect

When the Hong Kong based Chinese Gold and Silver Society (CGSE)
announced last week that they plan to build a massive new precious
metals vault in Qianhai in Shenzhen, the significance of this
announcement was not really appreciated, as of yet.

The vault is not a stand alone project and its real purpose is to
support a CGSE gold trading platform in Shenzhen and allow this new
Shenzhen gold exchange to link up with the Shanghai Gold Exchange.
Shenzhen is less than one hour away from Hong Kong by rail or road.

The CGSE has 171 members and between 50 and 60 of these will be
registered to operate on the new Shenzhen gold exchange by as early as
next month.

At the CGSE announcement ceremony last week, Dr. Haywood Cheung the
president of the CGSE confirmed that he has begun negotiations with the
Shanghai Gold Exchange with the intention of forming a strategic
alliance between the new CGSE exchange in Shenzhen and the Shanghai Gold
Exchange.

The main objective said Cheung "was to enable a mutual access between
CGSE and the Shanghai Gold Exchange for market participants in the form
of a "Shanghai Hong Kong Precious Metals Connect", which could help the
local gold & silver industry to gain access to the mainland
market through the Qianhai project."

The Chinese and Hong Kong Governments and financial authorities are
going to model this 'Precious Metals Connect' on the soon to be launched
"Shanghai - Hong Kong Stock Connect", which is an initiative between
the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock markets to boost liquidity and access
between the two stock markets and access between Chinese A and H
shares.

Chinese A shares are shares of mainland Chinese companies traded in
yuan/renminbi. H shares are the Hong Kong listing of the dual-listed
mainland stocks training on HK dollars. In the 'Stock Connect' there
will be northbound and southbound daily flows of liquidity within
certain limits between the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock markets. The
Shanghai - Hong Kong Stock Connect initiative starts next month on
October 13.

The CGSE therefore is planning that their Shenzhen gold platform
will become China's second gold exchange and offer Hong Kong and the
international market another route of access to the mainland Chinese
gold market.

This is important news and a very significant development and is worth watching over the coming months.PBOC and Gold - China Using Gold To Position Yuan As Reserve Currency

Recent comments by David Marsh, the co-founder of the influential
advisory and research group, the Official Monetary and Financial
Institutions Forum (OMFIF), illustrate that a paradigm shifts is also
occurring within the official Chinese sector as regards gold and the
renminbi currency.
Interviewed at this month's Chinese gold conference in Beijing, Marsh
said that “I don’t know if China has been boosting their official gold
reserves,” but he added that “over the past six or seven years the
Chinese authorities probably have been adding to their holdings in
different ways.”

Marsh’s most recent comments resonate with similar comments he made
in January 2013 when he said that “it is likely that the Chinese
authorities will carry on purchasing gold in modest amounts and they
will do it in a way calculated not to disturb the market.”

Commenting on reserve diversification at the time, Marsh said that
“there’s no reason why the Chinese central bank should hold a
disproportionate amount of other countries’ reserve currencies such as
the dollar.”

Just over a week ago, the UK Treasury announced the issuance of its
first ever renminbi sovereign bond, in a move that is seen as a
continued boost to the internationalisation of the Chinese currency. The
proceeds of HM Treasury’s issue will become part of the UK’s foreign
reserves in the Exchange Equalisation Account (EEA).

Until now the EEA has only held gold, euros, dollars, yen and
Canadian dollars. Some other central banks such as the Australian
Reserve Bank already hold renminbi as part of their reserves, and others
such as the Swiss National Bank are considering adding renminbi as one
of their reserve assets.

Last week, to coincide with the British government’s renminbi
announcement, David Marsh penned a commentary for the OMFIF on reserve
diversification and the Chinese currency titled “A Big Chinese step for
Britain: UK moves to forefront of Renminbi internationalisation”.

Marsh highlights that in 2015, the IMF will review the composition of
their Special Drawing Right (SDR) monetary unit, and an important
milestone for the Chinese currency will be “the possible inclusion of
the renminbi” in the SDR. According to Marsh. “there is a growing belief
that the Chinese currency now conforms to a sufficient number of
standards for convertibility that it will be become one of the
constituent parts along with the dollar, the euro, yen and sterling.”

In all aspects of the Chinese gold market, be it the commercial sector
or the official sector, the importance of gold as an investment and as a
backing to a future currency is being explicitly signalled by the
Chinese authorities.

The rest of the world should take note that when the Chinese decide
on a plan, they almost invariably see it through. For gold, the Chinese
are still planning big and the next phase of this plan is worth
watching.

These important developments in the Chinese gold market are bullish
for gold in the long term and should reassure jittery investors after
recent price falls.MARKET UPDATE

Today’s AM fix was USD 1,214.00, EUR 944.75 and GBP 743.51 per ounce.
Friday’s AM fix was USD 1,222.50, EUR 949.22 and GBP 745.38 per ounce.
Gold fell $7.30 or 0.6% to $1,217.60 per ounce and silver slid $0.61
or 3.3% to $17.90 per ounce Friday. Gold and silver both declined for
the week at 1.06% and 4.02% respectively.Silver in USD - 5 Years (Thomson Reuters)

Spot gold in Singapore
was trading at $1,217.60 an ounce. Gold spiraled to its weakest level
since January and silver hit a 4 year low today, as investors speculate
that the Fed will begin tightening interest rates sooner than expected.

Spot gold fell 0.1% at $1,214.84 an ounce at 0916 GMT, while earlier it
saw a low of $1,208.36. U.S. gold futures for December delivery were
down $1.20 an ounce at $1,215.40.

Silver touched its lowest since June 2010 at $17.30 an ounce, and was later down 0.6% at $17.71 an ounce.

The gold/silver ratio, jumped to its highest since mid 2010 on Monday
at 68.7. Silver is weaker despite robust physical demand globally.

China's silver imports were up 5.6% in the first eight months of the
year, official customs figures showed today. Palladium imports were up
30.9% and platinum imports were down 18.9% at 49.049 tonnes.

Support for silver is now at $15, the 5 year low from February 2010 (see chart).